West Coast Eagles head coach Michael Prior knows that Port Adelaide will come in hot this weekend as the opposition side will be keen to win their first ever game of AFLW.

The Eagles have experienced the challenges of being a new side in the competition but expect a fierce contest at Mineral Resources Park on Saturday at 1.10pm.

While the Power will be setting themselves to perform strongly, West Coast is also determined to win an opening round match for the first time entering their fourth campaign.

“We are under no illusions how hard it is to enter a competition that was us three years ago,” Prior said.  

“Port Adelaide can really show us where we stand in this group.

“We need to play four good strong quarters of football if we are to find success this weekend.

“They’ve obviously got Erin Phillips as their captain who’s been a pretty handy player over her journey and Gemma Houghton who was previously at Fremantle.

“Although they’ve got two big names, there’s more than that to their team and if we just focus on two players, we are kidding ourselves.”

Coming off a competitive practice outing against Fremantle, West Coast continue to build and develop an extremely fresh list of players.

Prior believed the group had advanced their fitness after a tough pre-season and was keen to get stuck into matches that count.

“We’ve definitely improved our group this year and we’ve changed up the side a lot,” Prior said.

“We’ve got a good young side that will come through together, but it’s taken us time to really get to this point.

“We are definitely going to make it tough for Port this weekend and I think it’s going to be a really exciting game.”